Ore and Ingots

. . . There can be no doubt, said Stalin, that as a result of the four months of the war, Germany, whose reserves of manpower are already given out, has been weakened to a considerably greater degree than the Soviet Union. The full volume of our huge reserves is only now expanding.

Before the war, the only yardstick the outside world had of the growth of Russia's military might was the number of hours the military parades took to get across the Red Square. Four hours . . . five hours . . . seven hours -- Russia's Army apparently grew from year to year. Last week, on the anniversary of the October Revolution, the parade took place again. It took barely two hours.

Obviously most of Russia's remaining might was too busy to parade last week; but, just as obviously, Russia has lost very heavily in four months of war. Exactly how heavily only a few people know, and what they say about it is suspect. Stalin said last week that the Russians had lost 350,000 killed, 378,000 missing, 1,020,000 wounded. Hitler said Russia had lost 8,000,000 to 10,000,000.

But, since Britain and the U.S. began to aid Russia, observers have had their first chance to estimate, if not Russia's losses, at least what Russia has left. If Stalin's statement that the Germans have suffered more than the Russians is not exaggerated, Russia still has as many first-line reserves as Hitler has soldiers on all fronts: about 8,000,000. All of these reserves are supposed to have had a year of military training. They are, of course, neither seasoned soldiers nor superior physical specimens. But they are legion.

Behind the 8,000,000 trained reserves are many more millions untrained. Foreign observers saw "thousands and thousands" of boys marching on the outskirts of Moscow, getting rudimentary training with broomsticks and other mock weapons. They wore no uniforms, but they were apparently fit material out of which soldiers could be made in time.

The task of welding these two masses --the untrained ore and partly trained ingots--into a more or less efficient machine was entrusted three weeks ago to a good general, Klimenti Voroshilov, and a not-so-good one, Semion Budenny. Last week Marshal Voroshilov reached Russia's auxiliary capital at Samara to organize his great new Army. And as he traveled east to the rear, he passed trainload after planeload of special winter troops, trained since the Finnish war in cold-weather war fare. There were said to be 750,000 of them, of which some 200,000 were reported to have arrived at Moscow.

In terms of manpower, Russia was not even half-beaten.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.